Saga Tips V – What You Got

Been awhile, since last year I believe. Last I wrote about was a 12 figure Hearthguard aka “Deathstar” aka “Panzer” et al. I don’t like those nicknames much so I will use a very vanilla “x12 HG” when I refer to it from now on. I still promote it and find that it still covers most of your bases most of the time. Rarely, is it not useful. Not a total game winner either but it’s a good start.

I like to stay away from Saga Board Abilities for the most part. Many reasons why. All of them are different and, honestly, I don’t know the best combos or contingencies. I have some favorites for the factions I play (Viking and Norman being my main ones now). One thing I have discovered is Saga Board abilities do not come up all the time.

Actually, this factor is what gave me an epiphany: What can my units do WITHOUT using the Saga Board? Let’s take a look at that and keep it in the most vanilla of terms.

Warlords have an armor of 5 (6 in shooting), generate 5 attack dice, and generate 3 Saga Dice. They also get some special abilities like Determination (free activation), Resilience (take more hits), We Obey and Side By Side. They activate on any Saga Dice and their exhaustion threshold is 4.

Hearthguards have an armor of 5, generate 2 attack dice per figure (1 per figure for shooting), generate a Saga Die per unit, activate on any Saga Dice, and their exhaustion threshold is 4.

Warriors have an armor of 4, generate an attack die per figure (1 for 2 figures shooting), generate a Saga Die per unit, activate on common and rare Saga Dice. Exhaustion threshold is 3 fatigues.

Levy, blessed Levy, have an armor of 3, generate 1 attack die per 3 figures (1 per 2 figures for shooting), do not generate a Saga die, and are exhausted after 2 fatigues. They activate on uncommon and rare Saga Dice.

All move Medium on foot or Long mounted.

With that unpacked above you can see why a x12 HG unit is effective. Activate on any dice and attack, at full strength, with 24 attack dice, and pretty resilient against exhaustion. This is even before you get into any kind of Saga Board abilities:

…24 attack dice, armor 5
Even if you lose a few in a prior melee or add a banner you still have a punch with them.

x8 Warrior units are still nothing to sneeze at too. Even better if you combine a few for x10 or x12 units. 

Levy? Well… many think they are weak and they kind of are. That said they may be your only ranged unit and that means they have a large area of influence. We all hate losing just 1 Hearthguard to a volley of Levy sling stones. Doing that still costs Saga Dice they don’t generate so my favorite thing to do with Levy is position them as a speed bump and resource-suck for my opponents. The main thing they’ve got going is there are x12 figures so they stick around much longer than their attacks and defense portrays. Deploy them as a screen, and when your opponent runs into them generate the 4 attack dice and burn 2 for a defense dice. Seems minuscule but you’ll be amazed.

Now, I’m not anti-Saga Board. I just look at those for what they really are – the flavor of your War Band. All of them have all kinds of cool abilities and many stack and one of the draws to this game is the “build” of some kind of multi-layered ability combo. Almost all strategy guides I see on the net are based off this train of thought. It’s very important to understand and figure out what your board can do and when. I just don’t like to see other players (including myself) shut down by a bad die roll. Sometimes those dice just don’t come up, even the common ones.

Thing is, even bad die rolls get you activations for your Hearthguard and Warlord. Plus you get a free one with your Warlord (and another unit can go with it) on top of that – no special board abilities needed.

What this boils down to is playing with what you have all the time. Cool board abilities and killer combos are just dessert. Too many times I’ve had plans crumble due to bad Saga Dice rolls and the lack of needed board abilities and I have seen others flounder and not enjoy the game when their dice don’t come up with the needed combos either. When you can play the ability as an added bonus to your already existing plan, that’s when your board will shine. For example:

Viking x12 HG engages an opponent. With banner it generates 22 attack dice. That’s good right there; that will wreck most other units on its own. Good chance this will destroy a lesser unit, almost 100% chance it will win and force a disengagement (there is minutiae there to deal with) unless that opponent unit has some board abilities up… taking opponent resources and making them play your game. Adding any Viking board abilities (my favorites being Frigg and Ullr*) just makes the good chance better.

*Frigg burns a fatigue for an attack die

*Ullr allows missed attack dice to be rerolled

All this said, or typed, I want it understood that I am no pro-level tournament player or anything like that. I’m still in my infancy in Historical Wargaming. I know that wins and skill in gaming are not the focus of this hobby. I do this, figure out a game, to be better at it as that is fun for me. Nothing pushes me from a game faster than not understanding it or really sucking at it and getting frustrated that it’s not “working”.

I hope I was helpful.

In Service-

-Gabe “Fat-Rollo” Martin